2022 Review

2022 was a ride. Literally and methaphorically. I spent time running, skiing, cycling, went as a best man to my friends wedding, raced a few races, got to know better bunch of wonderful people from Berlin and much more. It was an intensive year, not sportwise (here I actually did worse than last year; more on that later), but emotionally and personal-growth-wise.

To quickly recap the events of 2022: I went skiing to Austria in January and again in February, cycling in Mallorca in March. On April 4th I went as the best man to my friend - Dominik’s wedding. I did a terrible job as the best man. Instead of planning and attending the bachelors party I was cycling in Spain and my only contribution was a little manual help the day before, mediocre speach before the dinner, and moderating part of the evening fun. I just hope that Dominik knows me well enough at this point that he didn’t expect otherwise. Either way, it was fun, nice, modest, and sweet.

Week after the wedding we had a primary school reunion after 10 (ten) years. I saw a bunch of familiar faces that we keep in touch with on semi-regular basis and bunch of people I haven’t seen for 10 years. It was ammusing. In high school the collective seems already filtered to specific social bubble but that same doesn’t hold true for primary school. Part of the old schoolmates already have children and families while other are still alone (me?). Most of the evening revolved around small talk and catching up on insignificant life events. What stood out the most to me though is that everyone is still mostly the same, from looks to behaviour.

In May we have spent a week in Portugal on a SumUp Hack Week. Our project was called SumUp for Developers and the objective was to improve our developers website which, thanks to the capable and self-driven people that joined the team, ended with a solid success (albeit not a winning project). The event included 400 people from the company yet I’ve spent most of the time with Stepan, Ena, and Julien occasionally interacting with other people that I know mostly by their Slack handles. Getting better at small talk and bonding might be helpful before the next week (who am I kidding, I enjoy my small group of friends and have long given up on trying to change that).

Before flying to Portugal I also did my first Marathon after 2 years. I finished in 2:59:50 as the last person before the 3 hour mark. Last 5k my quads were cramping and I had to walk a few times which I attribute mostly to the heat and poor aid stations (sorry, clear suger and salt doesn’t really cut it for me on a paid event). The only saviour was Dominik who came to support me and passed me a few gels and a water along the road.

Beginning of June, two weeks after coming back from Portugal, I participated in Labe Run race. A race that tracks the Czech part of river of Labe in it’s (almost) full length - 380 km. The race if raced in 6 - 12 member teams, each person running 3 to 4 segments around 10km long, and usually takes around one a half day to complete. Our team Mlč a Šoupej Nohama ended in a beautiful 9th place out of 79 teams in 31:34:00. For me the biggest win and a proud moment was having the 2nd, 4th, 5th, and 1st fastest times on by segments respectively. (thank you Verča for introducing me to this fun side of running that makes it feel like a team sport)

In June we went to Austria for a cycling camp with Ondra, Jakub, and David. Apart a few hilly rides we rode the Glossglockner High Alpine Road up to Kaiser-Franz-Josefs-Höhe and did a crazy fast descent swerving between tens of firetrucks that just on that day attempted (and succeeded in doing so) the world record for pumping the water 1430m up. From the valley to the Edelweißspitze. At the end of the trip I also did my first aero bike ride, just week before my first Ironman.

On 25th June I completed Ironman Hamburg in excruciating 11:34:42. Heat and high-output activities simply don’t work well for me and on the day of the race the temperatures reached above 30°C. I executed solid swim (to my capabilities), went a little bit too hard on the bike and knew that I am in for a treat already 60km before starting the run. On a run I discovered 2 things. One - there’s reason there are dedicated cycling shoes for triathlon. After taking my regular carbon-sole and super stiff road bike shoes off I simply couldn’t run (which luckily got better over first few kilometers). And second - once your body core temperature gets over the threshold, there’s no going back. I ended up running and mostly walking a 4:39:04 marathon, puking a few times, but at least I tested my mental resilience before the ultratrail races that I had coming later that year.

After Ironman Hamburg I went to Berlin to spend a week working from the office after which, in early July, we flew with my parents to Spain where I had my first ultratrail race. Ultratrail Val d’Aran Pyrenees by UTMB, specifically the CDH (second longest) version, is a 105km long race with 6100m of elevation. The detailed report is in the July journal entry but in short, I didn’t finish. This time mostly due to simply not being ready and in part also to again spending most of the race in a heat far above my tolerance zone.

Sports

In progress…

Finances

In 2022 I stopped tracking my finance in ledger. One reason being it taking a lot of time. The other being that tracking all of my spending for 2 years gave me a good idea of where I am spending the most - sports and rent.

This year I was definitely spending more on eating out, drinks, travel, and generaly on myself. I also saved less than the year before which I feel bad about and intend to fix this year. In 2021 I managed to put 18.469 € aside compared to 11.000 € this year. I attribute this in part to higher expediture and in part to overall downturn of the financial market which makes made me realise that even index traded funds are not as save of an investement as I though they are. On the other hand, I have built substantial cash reserve and hope to expand it further to 3 months worth of salary of unexpected expenses.

2023

In progress…

If you endured up to this point - thank you, I wish you a lovely year.